In their long awaited book, OSWALD TALKED, Ray and Mary La
Fontaine
devote an entire chapter to Silvia Odio.
Unfortunately, there is
so much that is misleading and erroneous about their
treatment of Odio,
it makes one wonder if the rest of the book is as
egregiously
inaccurate. The only other book that I can recall in a
similar vein was
CASE CLOSED. Both books made me angry enough to hurl
them once or
twice across the room because I knew that the author(s) knew
better
than what passed for their honest appraisal of the
evidence. But
in this instance, the disappointment matched the level of my
anger and
stung me: I thought the La Fontaines were good
journalists!
I loved their piece titled, "The Fourth Tramp" on the Elrod
matter that appeared in The Washington Post two summers ago.
(1) It was
original,
and it seemed to be backed by startling new evidence. How
could they
have
gone so wrong then on Silvia Odio, when so much of the
official source
documentation
was readily available to them? Was journalistic
integrity
displaced
by sensationalism, all in an effort to sell a new book on
the
assassination
by adding a new twist to old evidence?

Rather than dissect the various and sundry errors in the
chapter,
point-by-point, I will deal with the first one which also
happens to be
the linchpin of their entire theory on Odio and,
unfortunately for the
La Fontaines, is so intolerable that it destroys the
remainder of their
convoluted fantasy regarding Silvia Odio and the
assassination.
They need to go back to the drawing board - or at least
review the
primary source documents - and do some serious research on
Silvia Odio,
lest they be accused of malicious rumor mongering. They
might even try
interviewing her in person, but after the way they treated
her in the
book, I doubt that this living witness (a member of a group
where
membership is declining with each passing year) will be very
cooperative with any future endeavor to shed more light on
the JFK
assassination.

Let's start at the beginning . . .

When I saw that Silvia Odio had rated an entire chapter
(Chapter 9, "It
Takes a Woman to Know") in OSWALD TALKED, I eagerly turned
to that
chapter. But my heart sank quickly when I read the
first sentence:

How do we know that Oswald attended anti-Castro meetings in
Dallas
during the fall of 1963?

"How do we know" is right. I didn't know that we did
know! Where
is the evidence for this? In all the years since the
assassination, whenever this erroneous story about Oswald
(and Odio)
attending anti-Castro meetings surfaces, no one has ever
come forward
to substantiate it with any witnesses who had seen them at
these
alleged meetings, or any other type of corroborative
evidence that any
such meetings ever occurred with Oswald and Odio present.

That is, however, until the La Fontaines offered their "new
evidence"
that Oswald attended such meetings by repeating this
uncorroborated
(and untrue) story and then, amazingly, claimed that it was
Silvia Odio
who told this lie.
They continue:

Well, a female witness - termed "credible" even by J. Lee
Rankin,
general counsel of the Warren Commission - let the matter
out more than
three decades ago. Remarkably, no one has appeared to notice
as yet,
possibly blinded by the klieg lights of her other, more
sensational,
assertions. To this day, the latter have comprised an
important
structural prop for conspiracy arguments, and continue to
generate
enthusiastic assessments of the witness's reliability.
Anthony
Summers has called her claims "the strongest human evidence"
[of a
conspiracy], HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi remains
"absolutely
convinced" she was telling the truth, and -no!- the angelic
Sylvia
Meagher, mistress of reason and noblest spirit ever to
examine the
Kennedy conundrum, titled the exposition of her tale "the
proof of the
plot." But with both new and overlooked information at
hand, the
flashy old tale suddenly looks very much like an invention,
proving
only that even the Divine may (though
very seldom) err, like mere human scribblers.

It is important to note that Rankin considered Odio a
credible witness
- that is true - as did Wesley Liebeler late in the summer
of 1964,
when he warned Rankin that: There are problems. Odio
may well be
right. The Commission will look bad if it turns out that she
is. There
is no need to look foolish by grasping at straws to avoid
admitting
that there is a problem. (2)

However, it needs to be emphasized that it is absolutely
untrue that
Silvia Odio told anyone that she knew Oswald because he
attended
several anti-Castro meetings. The fact is that
"credible" Silvia
has always denied ever saying this. (3) The La Fontaines
have created a
straw man by bringing it up, and then they make it worse by
accusing
her of making it up.

The two people the La Fontaines try to use to corroborate
this
outrageous tale, always denied by Odio, do exactly the
opposite: they
refute it - although you won't read that in the Odio chapter
in OSWALD
TALKED. (In fact, after reading Chapter 9, you might
feel a more
appropriate title for the book
might have been "SILVIA TALKED.") Nevertheless, the simple
truth is
that
Dr. Burton Einspruch, her psychiatrist, and her jealous
ex-best friend
Lucille
Connell help destroy the tale that Silvia is alleged to have
told, and
this
is where the confusion begins for some.

As most students of the JFK assassination know, Odio has
always denied
ever saying that she knew Oswald from several anti-Castro
meetings in
Dallas. She denied telling her ex-best friend Lucille
Connell
this, and she denied telling her psychiatrist Dr. Burton
Einspruch
this. Additionally, the evidence on record from these
two
supports the fact that Silvia Odio never said this, to wit:

1). Lucille Connell did not recall Odio telling this
tale of
Oswald and Odio at several anti-Castro meetings to the FBI
when
interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi in 1976. In fact when
asked if Silvia
Odio had told her that she
had heard Oswald speak at a meeting, Connell replied, "I
really don't
recall
her telling me that. I just recall that Oswald came to
her
apartment and wanted to get her involved in some way." (4)

2). While under oath and answering a question about
the Oswald
visit to Odio's apartment, Dr. Einspruch expresses his doubt
that Odio
really saw the person we know as Lee Harvey Oswald, based on
her ONE
TIME experience at her apartment:

EINSPRUCH: No. I don't think it was something
she had just
casually fabricated. But I retained just my own, you
know,
personal doubt, like I would even at this moment, that a
mistake could
have been made with a one time kind of experience that she
had with him
[Oswald] under those circumstances.

Now, if she had said that she had seen him a couple of
times, then I
would feel stronger about it. (5)

Dr. Einspruch, under oath, suggests that IF Odio had seen
Oswald "a
couple of times" then he would feel stronger about her
ability to
identify Oswald at her apartment. Doesn't this
testimony, under
oath, coming from someone who probably knew Odio better than
anyone
else, demolish any notion that Odio
saw Oswald at any other time, let alone at anti-Castro
rallies where
presumably
other witnesses could have also seen them there? Why
would Dr.
Einspruch,
under oath, say such a thing (that Odio had only seen Oswald
once) if
he
believed she had seen Oswald previously at several
anti-Castro meetings
in
Dallas?

Instead of using all of this evidence which is on the record
and
available to the public at the National Archives II at
College Park,
Maryland, the La
Fontaines chose to selectively excerpt from a memo written
by WC
investigator Griffin on 4/16/64. In that memo, he
asserts that
Einspruch related a story of Odio seeing "Oswald at more
than one
anti-Castro Cuban meeting." This might be interesting
except for
two things which are immediately apparent from reading the
entire memo
in context: 1) the memo never quotes Dr. Einspruch directly
and, 2) it
is obvious that either Einspruch or Griffin (or both) are
confusing
these alleged meetings, with the "one time kind of
experience" at
Silvia's house with her sister Annie present. How
could this be?

Two things come to mind.

First, had the La Fontaines not relied exclusively on only
the weakest
evidence that, when taken alone, *appears* to support their
erroneous
theory that Odio
is a liar, they would have realized that the two people
Griffin claims
told
him about Silvia seeing Oswald at the alleged anti-Castro
meetings,
both
later either denied saying or negated the notion entirely as
noted
above.

The 4/16/64 Griffin memo is all secondhand information that
never
quotes Dr. Einspruch directly. Instead, Griffin
paraphrases
constantly and worse, he seems confused and "infers" what he
thinks his
witness really means rather than following-up with a direct
question to
the witness (Einspruch). In fact, on the very issue of
the
alleged anti-Castro meetings and a remark about the term
"inflammatory"
made by Dr. Einspruch, Griffin opines that:

"The term 'inflammatory' is Dr. Einspruch's and he could not
clearly
indicate what it was that Oswald had said. In fact, I
got the
impression these comments were pro-Castro." (6)

In other words, WC attorney Griffin is now actually
interpreting things
rather than simply quoting directly from his witness, and he
fails to
discuss
what it was that gave him "the impression these comments
were
pro-Castro." (What comments? Einspruch couldn't
"clearly indicate
what it was that Oswald said.")

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the La Fontaines
describe Griffin
as one of the WC attorneys who was left out of the loop and
not
informed
on matters such as Jack Ruby. (7) If that is true, then it
would follow
to
ask why the La Fontaines would use a document from someone
whom they
claim
was uninformed, to support their theory that Odio said she
knew Oswald
from
anti-Castro meetings? (It is true they say that
Griffin was
uninformed
on Ruby, but Ruby is part of the Silvia Odio matter as we
will see in a
moment.)

Parenthetically, in the same paragraph they discuss Griffin,
the La
Fontaines write that Leon D. Hubert, another WC attorney,
resigned from
the WC investigation "in frustration." Hubert and
Griffin were
the two attorneys who were aggressively looking into Ruby's
past and
apparently were being kept in the dark about many
things. The
problem is, after reading the La Fontaine book, you never
find out just
how much in the dark they really were, or how much in the
dark the La
Fontaines really are about the Silvia Odio incident.

******

In order to understand how Odio came to the FBI's attention
in the
first place and how the reported actions of Jack Ruby led
them, albeit
circuitously, to her, we have to examine the statements of
Silvia
Odio's ex-best friend, Lucille Connell.

From Gaeton Fonzi's April 5, 1976 memo to Dave Marston, the
following:

Connell says that she was speaking on the telephone with a
friend of
hers who was secretary in a law office when Oswald was shot.
"We both
had our television
on," she recalls, "and saw Ruby shoot Oswald. And she
said to me,
"Oh
my goodness, Ruby was in our office last week and had power
of attorney
drawn
for his sister." (8)

Connell was speaking to her friend, Mrs. Sanford Pick, who
worked for
attorney Graham R.E. Koch in Dallas. (9) The La
Fontaines
reference Koch on page
216 in another chapter titled, "You Don't Know Me" and
unfortunately
miss
the connection to Odio, although they do understand the
significance of
Ruby
wanting to set up the power of attorney. However, they write
(as does
Seth
Kantor in his book) that the power of attorney was to be
with his
attorney
Koch - not his sister:

Ruby's chief concern now would be in making the [Oswald]
shooting look
a spur-of-the-moment matter so he could be back out in the
street as
soon as possible and reap the rewards of being a popular
hero. He
already had the perfect reason for being in the same block
as the
police station by going on a legitimate errand to the
Western Union
office there [to wire the money to Little Lynn]. Next
he would
need a reason for the gun. He stuffed
nine $100 bills, 30 $10 bills, 40 $20 bills and a number of
smaller
bills
into a pocket. It was supposed to be the federal excise tax
money Ruby
owed.
By carrying it with him, he created an understandable reason
under
Texas
law to pack the gun, too, even though he had no license to
carry any
hidden
weapon. But the excise tax payment story is phony.
Only five days
earlier
he had signed the power-of-attorney in the office of his tax
lawyer,
Gragham
Koch, granting Koch the right to negotiate with the IRS for
an extended
time
period to make those federal tax payments. There is no
logical
reason
for Ruby to be carrying all that money, except to establish
an alibi.

The La Fontaines use Seth Kantor for this information but,
ironically,
even though they had spoken with Fonzi over the past few
years before
writing their
book, no mention is made of how this part of Ruby's story
led the FBI
to
Silvia Odio. (10) In fact, the La Fontaines, in
describing the
deteriorated friendship between Odio and Connell after the
assassination, erroneously state
that:

Lucille Connell called the FBI on the heels of her
conversation with
Silvia. (pp. 257)

This is completely misleading. It was the FBI that
called Connell
- not the other way around - and it was after they spoke
with Connell,
and Connell eventually bringing up the Oswald visit to
Odio's
apartment, that Odio entered the picture.

According to Fonzi's documentary record, later on the same
day that she
spoke to her friend Mrs. Pick, Connell also spoke to another
friend,
Marcella
Insua, the daughter of the man who ran the Cuban Relief
Committee.

She mentioned to Insua what her friend said about Ruby being
in her law
office. Miss Insua happened to have a class of
American children
to
whom she was teaching Spanish. In class, she got into
a
discussion
of the Kennedy assassination and mentioned that she knew
someone who
had
dealings with Ruby. It also happened that in Miss
Insua's class
was
the son of FBI agent Hosty, who immediately went home and
told his
father
about the Ruby connection. The FBI contacted Insua
who, in turn,
put
them in contact with Connell. And for some unknown
reason, that's
where
the investigation stopped.

I specifically asked Connell whether she told the FBI about
her friend
and about Jack Ruby's visit to the law office to get power
of attorney
drawn for
his sister. She said: "Yes. The FBI has that
information. I
gave
it to them at the interview." She said she has been
puzzled about
why
it never came out in the Warren Report. She said: "I
was rather
surprised
that they didn't see fit to mention it myself because I
thought it was
rather
pertinent information. Ruby had never had power of
attorney drawn
for
his sister before."

I think that last sentence is especially significant, in
view of my
follow-up investigation, because it implies that Connell and
her friend
did discuss the particular matter of a power of attorney and
her friend
obviously told her that Ruby had not done that before.

I asked Connell about the FBI reporting that she told them
that Silvia
Odio told her she had heard Oswald speak at a meeting. She
said: "I
really don't recall her telling me that. I just recall
that
Oswald came to her apartment and wanted to get her involved
some way.
But as I recall Silvia herself didn't tell me that, it was
her sister
who told me that."

Connell said she couldn't imagine why the FBI didn't
put that in
their report. "Frankly, I was not impressed with
these two
FBI investigators," she said. "They were rather new on
the job I
think. They were not very smart in my opinion
and I did
more interviewing of them than they did of me.
They made
no notes at the time, so whatever they wrote down
after
they left I'm not sure would be a hundred percent correct."
(11)

The La Fontaines claim that Gaeton Fonzi, "perturbed" by the
revelations of Connell's 11/29/63 remarks to the FBI "now
claims that
his HSCA investigative notes indicate that the information
about prior
meetings with Oswald was not
told to Mrs. Connell by Silvia, but by one of Silvia's
sisters, and
that, moreover, the FBI misunderstood what was said." (12)

As anyone can see from reading the excerpt above from
Fonzi's 1976 memo
to Dave Marstan, that is exactly the case: 1) that Connell
didn't
recall
Silvia telling her about Oswald being at any meetings, it
was Silvia's
sister
who said this (according to Connell in 1976), and 2) the FBI
took no
notes
when they first interviewed Connell which could certainly
explain all
the
confusion about what was actually said. Even Connell
was astute
enough
to realize that she was not sure what they wrote down
afterwards would
be
"a hundred per cent correct."

Indeed.

But the La Fontaines, ever ready to discredit Odio, plunge
ahead and
include in the chapter notes at the back of the book:

Mrs. Connell herself, however, confirmed to Mary in March
1995 that (as
she told the FBI) it was Silvia who told her she had met
Oswald more
than
once prior to the assassination. (13)

So, after selectively excerpting "out of the loop" Griffin's
4/16/64
memo, and after ignoring Dr. Einspruch's sworn testimony in
1978 about
Oswald's visit to Odio being only a "one time experience,"
the La
Fontaines now apparently want their readers to believe that
their 1995
interview with Lucille Connell has more import than all the
earlier
evidence. They fail to provide the substance, context
or specific
question(s) asked of Connell in 1995 - just a short note
about
"confiding" to Mary. This is supposed to supplant
sworn
deposition and testimony taken much closer to the actual
events in
Dallas?

Really, now. To accord more significance to a
whispered
confidence (now blatantly betrayed by writing about it in
the book)
that is out-of-context, over the evidence on record, is what
the La
Fontaines expect their readers and the research community to
do?

But what's worse, the La Fontaines mislead when they imply
that after
Odio told Connell her story of Oswald visiting her
apartment, that
Connell then called the FBI. Remember - it was the FBI
that
contacted Connell (not the other way around) after they met
with Insua.

Some investigative work this is!

To recap: although the La Fontaines had access to one of the
HSCA
investigators (Fonzi), and although they apparently had
access to the
original source documentation at the Archives (which is also
available
to the public), they either ignored or somehow missed
important
evidence that it was the reported actions of Jack
Ruby just days before the assassination that actually led
the FBI to
Silvia
Odio (in a roundabout fashion) in the first place; they
ignored Dr.
Einspruch's
sworn testimony, that if Silvia had seen Oswald more than
once -
contradicting
the notion that she knew him previously from several
anti-Castro
meetings
- maybe he would have more confidence that one of the men
who visited
her
was actually Lee Harvey Oswald; and they apparently missed
the evidence
on
record, since 1976, that Connell did not recall Silvia ever
telling her
about
knowing Oswald previously!

The obvious question that the La Fontaines should have asked
themselves
is: Where is the evidence that there were any anti-Castro
meetings with
both Oswald and Odio in attendance, anyway? And why
doesn't the
original source documentation support the notion that Odio
lied to
Connell and Einspruch about this?

This is crucial for their theory to work, yet, it doesn't
seem to
matter to them that there is simply not a shred of evidence
for such a
fantasy. And once this house of cards collapses, the
remainder of
their groundless theory on Silvia Odio collapses as well.

But it sadly gets worse, for if we are to ignore all the
documentary
evidence, what are we to accept and believe? The La
Fontaines
provide the answer by relying on a love story "with
attitude," written
by Marianne Sullivan (who
hated Silvia Odio) to bolster their beliefs and theories
that Odio and
possibly
Father MacChann know more about the assassination than they
have
revealed.

And just in case relying on this romantic novel - rather
than evidence
- isn't bad enough, the La Fontaines then proclaim
authoritatively that
this romantic fantasy "KENNEDY RIPPLES: A TRUE LOVE STORY"
is "a memoir
despite its title."

A memoir? "Kennedy Ripples"? Is this part of the
"New
Evidence in the JFK Assassination" that the title of their
book heralds?

At this point you might begin to wonder, as I did, how the
La Fontaines
lost their way in the case, and how they could have made the
serious
mistakes they made. Were they on a deadline? Shouldn't
they have
interviewed Silvia Odio personally - instead of via a phone
call -
since she was so important to their theory as to rate an
entire
chapter? Shouldn't they have used Fonzi's knowledge
and original
notes on his investigations of Odio, Connell and
Einspruch? Where
is their proof that Silvia Odio is a liar? Where is
the evidence
that Odio or Father MacChann know more about the
assassination than
they've ever revealed?

Are these answers to be found in a romantic novel?

Such unhinged logic is distressing and depressing.
There is more
distortion, selective use of documentation and sheer
speculation in
this chapter than I have ever seen from some authors that
support the
"official version" of the assassination. This kind of
"research"
hurts us all because it sets
us back and confuses issues that were resolved long ago.

Some of the resolved issues that still stand despite the
efforts by the
La Fontaines include:

1). Silvia Odio is, without a doubt, a reliable and
credible
witness, despite the La Fontaines' new spin, 32 plus years
after the
fact. Her story of the visit by Oswald and the other
two
strangers was corroborated by both her sister Annie and,
perhaps more
importantly, by her own psychiatrist, Dr. Einspruch.
Under oath,
Einspruch testified that he recalled her mentioning the
visit of the
three men before the assassination.

2). There were no other anti-Castro meetings with
Oswald and Odio
present. Dr. Einspruch's 1978 sworn HSCA deposition of
Odio only
seeing
Oswald once, clearly supports this as do Connell's remarks
to Fonzi
that
she didn't recall Odio telling her such a tale of knowing
Oswald from
previous
meetings. This is a pointless red herring and straw
man that the
La
Fontaines have resurrected to support their mistaken notion
that Silvia
Odio
is a liar. They do this to one of the few remaining
living
witnesses
in the case, rather than explore the possibility that
Griffin could
have
simply been wrong in his memo, and that since the FBI took
no notes
while
interviewing Lucille Connell, they could have easily gotten
a detail or
two
wrong.

3). The two witnesses (Einspruch and Connell) whom the
La
Fontaines use to bolster their argument that Odio told a
tale of
knowing Oswald from seeing him at anti-Castro meetings, have
both
either denied or negate the argument by their own comments
in
interviews which are part of the original and primary source
documentary record - read: evidence - in this case.

In addition to the resolved issues noted above, the tactics
used to try
and paint Odio a liar fail miserably when the primary source
documents
are
checked against the book. For example, the La
Fontaines
mischaracterize
the very first FBI interview with Dr. Einspruch on 12/19/63,
wherein
Einspruch tells Hosty unequivocally that "Miss ODIO is
telling the
truth and not exaggerating." They want their readers
to believe
that Einspruch believes Odio is telling the truth about
Oswald at
anti-Castro meetings - something that is not mentioned in
that memo,
but they are inferring what Einspruch meant (not what Hosty
wrote) much
the way Griffin did. However, after all the Griffin
nonsense and
confusion over the tale of Oswald at anti-Castro meetings;
after Odio's
July WC testimony where she once again, under oath, denied
ever telling
Connell or Einspruch such a tale; and after Rankin wrote to
Hoover
about either proving or disproving Odio's story, the FBI
interrogated
Dr. Einspruch once again on September 11, 1964. In
that interview
by SA Alphonse J. Sutkus, Sutkus
claims that Einspruch "expressed the opinion that if subject
gave any
incorrect
testimony, it probably was the result of her
misunderstanding the
inquiries
posed to her rather than a deliberate attempt to
prevaricate."
(14)
So much for disproving Odio's story.

Do the La Fontaines mention this? Of course not
- they need
to characterize her as a liar despite the earliest FBI and
WC evidence
and
all subsequent evidence gathered during the HSCA
investigations that
support her credibility.

Most importantly, however, it seems to me that the La
Fontaines missed
a golden opportunity to tie neatly together some loose ends
that many
people have either forgotten about, or, could be unaware of
since the
FBI did not pursue them. It was the reported actions
of Jack
Ruby, who, according to Mrs. Sanford Pick, came to the law
office where
she worked to obtain a power of attorney for his sister just
days
before the assassination (and days
before killing Oswald), that eventually led the FBI to a
very reluctant
Silvia
Odio. That bears repeating: It was the reported
actions of
Jack
Ruby that eventually led the FBI to a very reluctant Silvia
Odio. (15)

Odio was a reluctant witness too scared to have ever come
forward on
her own. So was Connell, albeit to a lesser extent.
The FBI found
them. In the days since the assassination, Silvia Odio
has
maintained her privacy. She has not profited in any
way from the
tragic assassination - unlike the La Fontaines who have
produced a
segment for the trashy HARD COPY tabloid television show -
and she has
never sought any publicity via the lecture circuit
or any other public venue. She simply wants to be left
alone. I can only imagine how she will react to the La
Fontaines
joining others who
have called her a liar over the years. Sadly, she will
have
confirmation, once again, after all these years, that the
American
people don't really want
to know the truth...

How is Silvia Odio today? According to Gaeton Fonzi,
she is
living a quiet life in Miami. (16)

One month later, with the Report already in galleys, the
Odio incident
was still a critical concern for staffers. In a memo
to his boss,
Staff Counsel Wesley Liebeler wrote: "There are
problems. Odio
may well be right. The Commission will look bad if it turns
out that
she is. There is no need to look foolish by grasping
at straws to
avoid admitting that there
is a problem."

(3) See Odio Warren Commission testimony, July 22,'64.
Subsequent
to her testifying, the FBI once again questioned her and
Silvia
"emphatically denied that she ever told Mrs. C. L. Connell
that Lee
Harvey Oswald had made talks to small groups of Cuban
refugees in
Dallas." See FBI Report DL
100-10461, 202 (9/9/64).

(10) Interview with Gaeton Fonzi, 4/26/96. Fonzi told
me that the
La Fontaines called him several times over the past few
years, though
he
could not recall any specific questions they had on Odio,
which is
strange
since Fonzi was the HSCA investigator who researched and
interviewed
Silvia
Odio, and certainly could have helped them in their
"research" of her.

(12) Since, according to Connell, the FBI "made no notes at
the time,
so whatever they wrote down after they left I'm not sure
would be a
hundred percent
correct" it is very easy to understand how confusion
might have
ensued
with reporting the story later, from memory, as it
were. Even
Connell
acknowledges this in her interview with Fonzi. See
HSCA Doc.
180-10101-10283,
Box 233.